Animation Fun Facts for Dec 18, 2012

Birthdays: Antonio Stradivari, Karl Maria Von Weber,Ty Cobb, George Stevens, Ozzie Davis, Diane Disney-Miller, Anita O’Day, Paul Klee, Betty Grable, Keith Richards is 69, Leonard Maltin is 62, Ray Liotta is 58, Katie Holmes is 34, Brad Pitt is 49, Steven Spielberg is 66 Two Hundred Years Ago- 1812- The first volume of stories Childrens and Household Tales by the Brother Grimm came out, The world learns of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. 1919- in France Composer Cole Porter married divorcee Linda Thomas. They stayed together all their long lives even though she knew from the outset that he was gay . 1937- Mae West does a comedy routine on national broadcast radio with Don Ameche about Adam and Eve that was considered so racy CBS banned her from their network. At the same time she got fined by the networks for joking about ventriloquist puppet Charlie McCarthy:" Hmmm…he’s all wood and a yard long!" 1939-Max Fleischer's animated classic “Gulliver's Travels”. 1960- A young eccentric man named Jerry Garcia was dishonorably discharged from the army. He had done things like drive a tank into a field then walk away and had been AWOL 8 times in one year. After leaving the army Jerry Garcia became a hippie musician in San Francisco and in 1966 formed the rock band the Grateful Dead. 1961-" In the Jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps to-night…a winoweh, etc. " this song by the Tokens goes to #1 in pop charts. 1964- DePatie-Freleng’s The Pink Phink, the first Pink Panther cartoon short. 1966- Chuck Jone's 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' premiered. 1975- Rod Stewart announced he was leaving the band Faces for a solo singing career. 1978- SAG strikes Hollywood again for residuals. (again...) 1984- Christopher Guest married Jamie Lee Curtis at Rob Reiner’s house . 1997- Saturday Night Live Comedian Chris Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment in the John Hancock Tower, surrounded by empty food containers and porn magazines. The chubby 31-year-old had been partying for 17 straight hours doing cocaine, heroin, vodka and crystal-meth. His last words were to an exhausted prostitute:" Please don’t leave me.". He was set to play the voice of Shrek. Farley idolized the late John Belushi, who had also died of drugs and hard living at age 31. One writer recalled Farley drunk turned to him and asked innocently:" Do you think Belushi is in heaven?" 1998- Dreamworks feature cartoon the “Prince of Egypt”, or, as it was known in Hollywood,"The Zion King".